Currently battling insomnia after arriving back home.
In January, my friends and I were talking about the recently released Gundam SEED movie and joking about going to Japan to see it. I went to look at flights, and it turns out round trip tickets to Japan were $400 – $500, and there were some other nerd-related things going on. So uhh yeah I booked a flight over for a week in Tokyo. I was aware of the T-Swizzle concert, so I tried to avoid going on the yellow Chuo or anywhere near Tokyo Dome lol. I made it a point to (try to) eat “one good meal” per day to balance out the fact I was totally gonna go eat garbage collab food as well.
**Friday, February 9th**
* I landed in the afternoon, took the Skyliner to Nippori, then took the train to Akihabara to check in to my hotel, Super Hotel Premier Akihabara.
* Ate at Tonkatsu Marugo in Akiba. I got in line at 5pm; there were already people inside and I’m not sure when they had started letting people in. I got the fattier cut and wowie it all just melts in your mouth.
* Got a Persona 3 Reload taiyaki at Gigo Taiyaki. These were random (1 of 3 designs) + a random coaster. Got Koromaru taiyaki and Junpei coaster. Unfortunate; neither are Aigis.
**Saturday, February 10th (Lunar New Year)**
* Got up in the morning and went to Seagen in Tsukiji Market, which is run by Yamayuki, the tuna wholesaler. I got the tuna set with roe, and paid more to add on uni. Probably the best meal I had on this trip. I went and did a walking lap around Tsukiji and got tea, came back, and people had started to line up, so I got in line too. Unfortunately, it turns out all of these people were placeholders who were holding spots for larger groups lol, so it multiplied very quickly. I still got in the first seating, but *yeesh*.
* I was pretty full after Seagen and walked off the meal by going to Hamarikyu and had matcha + a sweet (it’s a cute yellow daffodil treat right now) in the garden. Pretty chill.
* Took the train all the way to Ikebukuro to go shopping. I totally ate at the Ikebukuro Wendy’s First Kitchen because of the P3 Reload collab, and that was the most I have ever spent at a Wendy’s before in my life LOL. Even after the Yen to USD conversion, it was a bit yikes. The food was the normal Wendy’s food with little flags of Reload characters on them, though I did like Aigis’s mango tapioca. The citrus fries for the collab were also okay, but you really need to shake the bag around.
* I also visited fanfancy in Ikebukuro Gigo. This is a store for ‘oshi’ goods – you can buy holders for photo cards, little outfits for 10cm – 13cm plushies, frames for can badges, acrylic dioramas to decorate your character acrylic stands with. Very powerful store, tbqh. Lots of cute things. They also have dollhouse-like dioramas set up for you to pose your plushies in and take photos of them.
**Sunday, February 11th**
* Went to Tokyo Big Sight for Tokyo Fes. Specifically, I checked out Another Control (Atlus works) and Twinkle Mirage (Square Enix works). This was my first time going to a doujinshi event, actually. My spoken Japanese is pretty ass and I have a hearing deficiency in my left ear, so I just did my best to make small chat with the creators and bought stuff.
* Went back to Akihabara to drop off my crap then went to see the Gundam SEED movie at the nearby Toho Ueno Cinema. Uhh… that sure was an anime movie. *Uhhhhh*.
* For dinner, I went to Tofu Sorano in Shibuya and caught up with a friend who lives in Tokyo. We ordered a bunch of things, like the fresh tofu box (drool), and tofu skin with uni. I love uni.
**Monday, February 12th**
* Spent the day in Yokohama to go to Sea Paradise for the P3 Reload collab with some friends. Basically there was a stamp rally / scavenger hunt around the park, and you could also find cardboard cutouts of the main characters. The highlight of the thing was Aigis narrating the sardine fish show then talking about the < POWER OF BONDS > between the sardines afterwards. Girl turned into a Persona 4 character. As we found out, the collectible card bonuses you were supposed to receive for every \[x\] yen spent on collab food and collab merch had run out, but you could send away for them later, and this led to a 20min long battle against… idk, Japanese Bureaucracy??? in which I had to fill out multiple forms with my friends address, to which the bonuses would later be sent. Except we had 4 receipts, and this meant we had to fill out 4 forms even though everything was going to the same address. I feel like we should have just said fuck it, but after filling out the first form, you might as well keep going. Sob.
* We also started off the day by eating breakfast the Yokohama Wendy’s with the P3 Reload Collab because obviously that’s the natural way to start your day when you’re going to a sea park for P3 Reload all day.
* After Sea Paradise, we went to China Town, which was decorated with lots of lanterns and other things for Lunar New Year. I demanded we get lotus root somewhere in China Town for dinner and we went around asking random restaurants if they had lotus root until we found one. Kinda still surprised this actually worked lmao. I don’t remember the name of the restaurant, but they served us a nice fried lotus root “sandwich” with pork in the middle.
**Tuesday, February 13th**
* Did strawberry afternoon tea at Aman. Great view (Fuji poked its head out), and the tea was good. Loved the little desserts. However, I thought the scones were pretty damn mid.
* I had an ear cleaning appointment thing where they stick a camera-thing in your ear and show you what’s inside then clean it out. Equal parts fascinating and equal parts gross lol.
* On the way to the salon, I noticed the Keio line had started selling P3 Reload train cards, so I came back to the station and bought a train card and went looking for the P3 Reload decal train lmao. I EVENTUALLY found it, but when I got on it, the announcements weren’t done by Aigis… I’ve been lied to by the Keio line… They have made an enemy… I will not forget this…
* I saw the Golden Kamuy live action movie. Definitely a more enjoyable watch than SEED Freedom. A fairly faithful adaptation of the manga as well. (I had a crush on Hiroshi Tamaki when I was younger and watched the Nodame drama where he plays Chiaki… 🥵)
**Wednesday, February 14th**
* Since this was my last full day in Tokyo, I just went shopping and putzed around buying souvenirs and stuff before I left.
* Around 4pm I started craving sushi and decided to head over to Nemuro Hanamaru in Marunouchi Kitte. It’s “conveyor belt” in that there is indeed a conveyor belt with some things you can pick up and eat, but most of the things you eat there, you order by writing them down on a sheet of paper then handing to the waiter. But as far as “fast conveyor belt sushi” goes, I think it’s my favorite. Gets very busy around dinner time – I was #4 in line around 4:30pm, and there was a 20+ group wait by the time I left at 6pm.
**Thursday, February 15th**
* Due to massive FOMO cause I saw this place with a line outside of it every time I passed by, I went to Roast Beef Ohno in Akiba for lunch before I left. I liked it and the oxtail soup was good, but I would not recommend waiting 1 – 2hrs in line for this. I walked there from my hotel before they opened and was the first person in line. On the recommendation of a friend, I tried the onion sauce, so I guess I’ll have to go back sometime else and try the wasabi.
* Went back to Narita via the Skyliner again.
**Other Stuff**
* **Zipair**: I flew Zipair’s SJC to NRT route… You get what you pay for. This airline is cheap (was like $500 roundtrip for my SJC to NRT flight, and even down to $430 or so for LAX to NRT) and has free wi-fi on board, but a lot of add-on costs for stuff like a checked bag. Even water bottles have to be bought on the flight for 250 Yen. But even after add-ons, it was still quite affordable for me to compared to other airlines, especially on 2 weeks planning notice. The SJC route was particularly nice because I was flying on weekdays and it seems to be quite underused compared to LAX, so I was able to have 3 seats to myself both on my flight to Tokyo and my flight back. I imagine that’s much harder to do on the weekends.
* **Super Hotel Premier Akihabara**: I stayed at this hotel for my week in Tokyo. Very short walking distance from Akihabara station and the main area with all of the arcades and whatnot. Very standard business hotel with the usual double size bed, small bathroom, and overpriced breakfast buffet. They also have a lounge with free drinks and alcohol after 6pm and the front staff said it was okay to bring non-hotel guest friends for free drinks during that. They also have a public bath, but this was kind of annoying to me cause the ladies bath only had 3 shower stalls lol. The other thing I felt was annoying was there only being 1 tiny elevator for a 13 floor hotel, but welp. Not the best hotel I’ve stayed at in Tokyo, but eh, availability was limited due to the concert, so eh I just grabbed something near a major station.
* Down the street from the hotel, on the other side of the bridge, is a basement level Thai stretching/flexibility/yoga? massage place. I got a leg massage there cause damn dude walking around in Japan for a week really can kill your legs. They gave me a nice hot Thai tea after too.
* **Steam Deck**: I bought a Steam Deck to play P3 Reload on the plane. It worked. Good product. Thumbs up. I shall now use it to play in bed because moving 5 feet to my PC is just something I do not have the mental capacity for right now.
* **K-Books**: K-Books is a 2nd hand / reseller store with tons of locations in areas like Ikebukuro and Akihabara. What each one sells is different. I went to the Game Store and Character Store in Ikebukuro, near Sunshine City Mall, to browse merch. Some of it is pretty cheap, especially with the exchange rate right now. But the store employees know who the desirable characters are, and those items will have waaaay more insane prices.
* **General advice for people who wanna do nerdy shit when they visit**: Follow the Twitter / X accounts of things you like and look for announcements of new things before your trip. Also, a lot of things also require reservations or something in advance. For example, there’s a Chiikawa restaurant in Ikebukuro Parco, and you had to have booked in advance to get in.
* **Oshi Goods**: Aside from fanfancy, I think Seria is a good store for oshi stuff too cause it carries a bunch of things for displaying keychains/figures, has plush outfits/accessories/tools, and also storage for items like coasters.
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by astrolia
